Starfield - November 11, 2022. How excited are you?

The Game Room
1

Starfield is more or less the reason Elder Scrolls VI has not entered full production…or at least why it has been 10 years since Skyrim without a new Elder Scrolls.

Anyway, I was absolutely not anticipating Starfield until Todd Howard described it as “Skyrim in Space”. If they have indeed made a new open-world Fallout/Elder Scroll style game, but set in space and with a whole new universe, I am up for it 100%.

I thought we could discuss the anticipation for this game. Anyone else at least a little bit excited for it?

2

I wouldn’t go so far as “excited” but I would say “politely interested”.

I’ve enjoyed the Elder Scrolls games, and I like freeform exploring, and my tastes veer more to scifi than fantasy in general, so there’s several checks in its favour.

Also it’s a new engine, so ideally it’ll be wonderfully expandable and easily modded.

Under normal circumstances, I might so far as to describe myself as “reasonably chuffed” but the deep cynicism of Fallout 76 has made me take pause and see what the result of Starfield is before diving in. I won’t be a first purchaser.

3

I’m tentatively excited, but this is post-acquisition ZeniMax. We’ll see what kind of thumbprint Microsoft leaves on the game.

4

I’m not at all excited.

Bethesda used to be the undisputed kings of RPGs. As the Elder Scrolls series went on, the games became more and more brain-dead. Skyrim’s main quest is ok, though it is a bit formulaic and boring. A lot of the side quests lack depth, especially the College of Winterhold where it’s basically here, do a couple of minor things and poof! you’re the arch-mage. Even so, Skyrim was still a decent RPG. There are a lot of things I can criticize about it, but I did like the game overall.

Fallout 4 really tanked it though. Instead of being an RPG, it’s a brain-dead shooter. That’s fine if you want to play brain-dead shooters, but it’s not Fallout. If they had intentionally switched genres that would be one thing, but what really bothered me was that in response to the criticism, Bethesda said that they thought they were making a proper Fallout game.

This makes me wonder if Bethesda is even capable of making a proper RPG at this point.

A lot of people keep saying it’s going to be kinda like Skyrim in space. My worry is that it’s going to be more like Fallout 4 in space.

Fallout 76 completely put the nail in the coffin for Bethesda’s reputation. At this point there is no way in hell that I would buy one of their games at launch.

What I’m expecting from Starfield is a brain-dead shooter that has just enough RPG elements that they think they can call it Skyrim in space, combined with an emphasis on Creation Club content. I’m expecting the same poor writing and gaping plot holes that plagued Fallout 4. I’m expecting an emphasis on settlement building so that they can again push more Creation Club paid content. I’m expecting a push to sell whatever their space version of “atoms” is. I’m expecting hugely over-priced and underwhelming DLC.

And of course, being Bethesda, I expect the game to be buggy as hell at release.

If it’s anything close to my expectations, then I’ll be skipping this one.

I don’t have much hope for the next Elder Scrolls game, or the next Fallout game, though the release cycles for both franchises are getting longer and longer so is the next Fallout even going to be in this decade? Probably not.

On the other hand, if Obsidian gets to release Fallout New Vegas 2, I’d probably buy that at launch.

5

Did you like Outer Worlds? I did and if they have enough time and money, I hope they make a full sequel as big as New Vegas.

6

I didn’t play Outer Worlds. They kept promising (or at least hinting at) mod support but then never delivered it. I also like 3rd person games. Why go to all the bother of creating a character if all you ever see of your character is their hands?

I probably will buy it at some point, but it needs to come down in price significantly first.

7

Get a trial subscription to the Xbox game pass and play it. Absolutely worth it.

8

You do realize that Bethesda and Obisidian are basically the same company at this point, right? Microsoft acquired them both.

Throw in inXile, which MS also acquired, and you encompass most of the people that worked on various games in the Wasteland and/or Fallout universe. (After all, Fallout really only existed because Interplay couldn’t get the rights to the Wasteland name to make a sequel when EA wouldn’t release it without charging through the nose for it. While Interplay created and programmed Wasteland, EA owned the distribution rights…and the name.)

9

Elder Scrolls Online was a new Elder Scrolls.

10

Yep. Prior to that acquisition, Bethesda had made it clear that a sequel to Fallout New Vegas just wasn’t going to happen. Now that they are all under Microsoft, a lot of fans are hoping for a Fallout New Vegas 2. There has been a lot of speculation about it online since they both became part of Microsoft. Of course at this point it’s all fan speculation. No one has even announced that it’s under development or even being officially considered yet.

11

Does that work entirely as a single-player game? I thought you had to be online with others.

12

Interesting. I liked Fallout 4 more than Skyrim (except for the number of times it crashed), so maybe I’ll check it out.

13

I have only dipped my toes in, but you can solo most of it (you do have to be online, but don’t have to be with others). It’s similar to how I played WOW, basically treating it like an RPG.

You can’t do the "12 player trial " difficult dungeons, and some high-level content as well, I gather, but the main story and faction quests are very doable solo, I’m told.

But I guess it depends on why you lay ES games. Now, I only started with Morrowind, but I play for the lore, and running around in the wilderness, and the story, so ESO for me still hits all those buttons. I don’t plan on getting involved in PvP, either, if I can avoid it.

14

Elder Scrolls Online does make you be “online with others”, but for the most part, they’re just background noise while you go about your own heroic business. In fear of drifting from the OP, I’ll say it feels shallow, less interesting.

If you were hungry for a coop Elder Scrolls experience (as my wife and I were) then it’s… fine. Serviceable. And to date, the only non-janky way of getting that coop on. That same coop experience is also ruined by the other players being present, flexin’ with their lightning horses.

15

Bethesda games have always been overrated. Skyrim was pretty okay - only good after tons of mods - and it will be over a decade since they made that. It will be a pleasant surprise of Starfield is any good. I don’t expect much.

But then I don’t like to spend a lot of energy getting excited about stuff like this. It seems like you’re just setting yourself up for high expectations and disappointment. Wait till the game comes out, see if it’s any good, and if it is, then play it. Getting all hyped for something just makes people get really angry when it’s not perfect, and often makes them throw away their money for no reason on preorders.

16

WoW is a game in the Warcraft series, you wouldn’t say Blizzard hasn’t made a Warcraft game since Warcraft III, I would hope. Even Hearthstone is considered to be part of the Warcraft series despite the fact that it’s a virtual card game.

Note that Battlespire, one of the early Elder Scrolls games (it was released between Daggerfall and Morrowind) had multiplayer and that was a big draw of the game. Now, it was also a flop, but still it was an Elder Scrolls game, just as ESO is. Redguard was also an Elder Scrolls game and it didn’t even have a character creator; you had character with a name, race, and set of skills you couldn’t change. It’s not even considered an RPG, it was labeled as an “action-adventure” game (think Legend of Zelda). It was yet another flop (showing that they do poorly when diverging from their winning formula), but it was still a part of the library.

Not all Elder Scrolls games are single-player RPGs, as not all Warcraft games are RTS.

/nitpick

17

I disagree. Morrowind was great.

18

I find it very bizarre to consider Hearthstone, a card battle game, to be part of an RPG series. It’s pretty clearly a spinoff, like say Mario Kart vs the Mario games. Using the same characters or even being set in the same universe isn’t sufficient to be in the same series.

I can’t comment on WoW Online vs the original games as I’m only familiar with the former. But it would not surprise me at all if it is different enough that people who loved the offline series don’t consider the online game to be part of it.

As for getting excited about games: I have to at least see gameplay first. I find it difficult to get excited by games otherwise anymore.

That said, Elder Scrolls games never did much for me, so the description already puts them at a disadvantage.

19

Bethesda just released 15 minutes or so of gameplay. It looks like “Skyrim/Fallout in Space”, much as they described.

I will read reviews first, but this is a likely-buy for me right now.

Over 1,000 planets to explore. So far, looks like a silent protagonist. I hope so?

20

“Fallout 3 is just Oblivion but with guns.”

“Skyrim is just Fallout 3 but with swords.”

“Starfield is just Fallout/Skyrim but in Space.”

I understand that some people mean sentences like this to be pejorative - to indicate lazy design. But man, I am absolutely here for it.